One Heart's Betrayal
by CardioQueen
Summary: Cristina Yang doesn't take stock in emotions. Emotions make you weak.


Cristina Yang has never cared for emotions, never really put stock in them. Emotions make you ignorant, make you do things that you should never do. Emotions take over your life and replace common sense, basic knowledge- intelligence.

More than anything in the world, Cristina values her intelligence. Her brains.

They're what got her through this life, they're what got her to the point she's at now. Not some stupid emotions, not some stupid fairytale ideal of what her life should be.

Except her life isn't what it should be at all.

The promise of a bright future in cardiothoracics is long faded, gone with the first real love of her life to an undisclosed location.

The promise of a relationship where she would meet her love halfway has dissipated, gone with the man who wrapped his hands around her neck but showed her more love than the man who is sleeping by her on this cold autumn evening.

The promise is gone.

There are times, in moments like these were Cristina considers emotions to be like necrotic organs; dead tissues overwhelming her body and she'd give anything to excise them from her life. She would take a scalpel to her very _soul_ if there were a way, excise all the parts and all the bad decisions until there was nothing left but the woman that she wanted to be.

The woman that she _needs_ to be now.

Tears form in the corner of her eyes; she sniffles and then makes a small gasp for air. Not that long ago she had told Owen that she couldn't breathe without him- that is no longer the truth. She can't breathe with him, with Callie, with Meredith. She can't breathe in this goddamned atmosphere and she needs to go.

Another string of tears from her eyes, another gasp for air; Cristina is fighting for control and she realizes that she hasn't had it since Burke left her, maybe before that.

She's still a ghost; she'll always be a ghost. Owen doesn't see her, never will. Meredith is too happy and in love to see that her person has faded away to nothing.

Owen shifts next to her and pulls her tighter. He murmurs her name in question and she tells him that she's fine. He doesn't question it and goes back to sleep. Cristina is falling apart in his arms, piece by piece and he doesn't see it.

Maybe he doesn't care.

Cristina doesn't know and she doesn't care to ask.

Instead, she slips from his arms and pulls on her clothes. There are a lot of things that she's leaving behind, that she won't send somebody to come and get. Pictures, jewelry, diplomas; they all have important memories attached to them and emotions to go with them.

Cristina doesn't care about emotions.

She barely makes it to the exit for the interstate before she breaks, pulls her car off to the side of the road and lays her head against the steering wheel. This time she doesn't shed a few tears, she doesn't gasp softly for air, afraid to wake the man she thought she could be enough for- this time, she breaks; she shatters into a million pieces and there's nobody there to pick them up.

The pain in her chest spreads like wildfire and her eyes are burning and her fingers are curled around the steering wheel as her brain is willing the nerves in her arms to turn, the nerves in her right leg to step on the gas pedal until it's plastered against the floor; to run away and never come back.

Her heart just won't let them.

When Cristina turns her car around, she knows what she's returning to. Cristina knows that she's not going to magically be seen and that if anything her life will be worse. Cristina knows that she already has nothing to live for and that's not going to change. She _knows_ all of these things.

Cristina Yang doesn't take stock in emotion, doesn't believe in them. Emotions are unintelligent, uninformed and misguiding. Emotions make you weak.

There's this thing about emotions though; emotions, once you give into them, once you let your heart speak instead of your mind? You're powerless against them.

Emotions are the most powerful force in the world.

With a heart heavier than stone, Cristina crawls back into her bed; the sheets are still warm and the man she once thought herself in love with still there. His arm wraps around her and he pulls her close. She doesn't know if he notices the chill in her skin, thinks bitterly that he doesn't even care. Her situation is not a good one and Cristina knows without a doubt that she'll never really be happy again.

Cristina knows that she hates her life and that she could change it, that all she would have to do is get out of bed, get in her car and drive; the only thing she needs to do is leave Seattle and that she could have everything she knows that she wants.

She just isn't strong enough.


End file.
